


ribs

by lostballoons



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Drinking, Drunken Shenanigans, F/F, Smoking, Speakeasies, Wisconsin AU???, lots of playing marbles and talk about dogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostballoons/pseuds/lostballoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He drives an unregistered car,” Jean said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “because he’s an unregistered man, you get me?”</p><p>“Nah,” said Ymir. “Well, sort of.”</p><p>“He wants to be a legitimate businessman, but he’s not about to fork over half his income to taxes. At least that’s what he tells me.” Jean shrugged. “He’s got kind of a Boston Tea Party slash Al Capone complex, but he pays real good, so.”</p><p>“You said he runs a speakeasy?” asked Ymir. She scribbled BTP, followed by a half dozen question marks in the dust. “What the fuck? This is 2008, not, like, whenever the Great Gatsby came out.”</p><p>“It’s all about the alcohol tax,” said Jean. He squinted at the sun, yawned, then lazily propped his head on his fist. “It’s just a roundabout workaround. But listen, the work’s not bad. You just pick up shipments from Milwaukee, then drive like hell back to the bar and load them in. It’s an hour drive each way, but he pays for the gas.” Jean paused, watched her chew her lip, mulling it over. “He’s also looking for waitresses, but I don’t really think that’s your thing.”</p><p>“I can drive fast,” said Ymir. “I can drive real fast.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sticks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _oh, archipelago take me_

Ymir’s playing fast cracks on the corner, where she one-two-platoons marble off marble into Marco’s steepled finger goal. Tawny haired Jean throws his hands in the air, scowls hard. They exchange dimes. They bet low stakes, but play it off like it’s the big leagues. 

Instead of pennies, baby-faced Marco offers her a cigarette; he offers one to Jean too, but nah, he says, he’s not looking to get cancer, not looking to die too soon. Ymir’s stomach twinges. Patting her shoulder, Marco lights her up. They avoid eye contact as they smoke. 

Ymir works at the grocery store across the street, where she scans items and faces, always looking for that rosy-cheeked girl with those knobby, perpetually bruised knees. Sometimes she thinks she catches her ocean-wide eyes, but the girl’s always immediately overshadowed by a generic Bob, Joe, or Mary, who all offer unwanted advice and tall, concealing shadows. The worst of them is Old Meth Eyes, who always swoons over Ymir with his middle aged, god-given moral superiority. He’s got nothing to be superior about, though, with his dog that shits all over her neighbor’s lawns and his trailer-sized house, the same small and rundown grey as everyone else’s. 

Old fucker. It should be impossible, Ymir bets, to have not talked to Bruised Knees by now, in a town so small and half-shuttered. She wonders what her voice sounds like, and if she could slip her her number between register clicks.

Jean says he got a raise today. Ymir asks where he works, but he says she gotta earn that, nobody gets anything for free. But if you’ve got the time, how bout another game of cracks? He asks her when her shift starts. Ymir smokes harder.

+++

Papa’s just come back from nailing the damning boards over his great grandfather’s (then his grandfather’s, then his, now the state’s) jewelry store windows. His frown cuts deep into his face. He wrings his hands together. Too bad you gave up smoking, you old man, you half-dead, wholly-wasted man. 

He leans against the kitchen counter, stares blankly at the towering stack of unsold wedding rings piled upon the dining room table. Krista watches him from the couch. Their eyes briefly meet, and she dashes hers down to the magazine in her lap, swallows hard.

Mosquitos splatter themselves against the window behind her. The air tastes like gray. She pulls her bruised knees to her chin, and roots her eyes to the model’s jutting collarbones. 

Mama emerges from her and Papa’s bedroom, still pulling her gray-brown hair into a stern knot. Voice muffled by the hair tie in her mouth, she says to Krista, “Your father’s lost the store, you know.”

“Yes,” says Krista. The model wears Armani, in 2008’s most fashionable cut. The dress hangs from her like a clothesline. 

She thinks of a tall, sharp-boned girl from the supermarket, who she often hears swearing from the aisle over (accidentally, the girl always says). Her grocery store polo always hangs off her shoulderblades. 

Krista’s cheeks flush. She tugs up her socks. 

“Not enough people getting married anymore, I suppose,” Mother grunts. “Your father tried hard to convince that Wagner boy down the street to marry his no-good, gum smacking girlfriend, but the dumb kid got shot sneaking onto someone’s property. So, the store went under.”

She examines the dining room table. She frowns. “We’ll manage on our own, though, us Reisses never ask for help from anyone, no, no.” She crosses herself, then begins rearranging the cases. Four by four by four, useless but so pretty in the lazy afternoon light. “Your grandaddy never asked for help. He worked his way out of trouble, even if he had to stand knee deep in sheep shit on the big boy’s farm for eight hours a day. Your daddy, too, worked his way to his hunchback chopping wood, up until your grandaddy died and he got the store, but he never asked for a dime, not like those no-teeth beggars by the highway. We don’t got any money now, but we’ve got a home, at least.” She crosses herself again, Virgin Mary dappled ephemeral by screen-door slats of light. “Even if you--God forbid now, God forbid--end up selling yourself in downtown Milwaukee, at least you weren’t a goddamn beggar.”

Krista turns the page, lets her hair fall over her face. Another mosquito splat. The ceiling fan hums.

Mother tuts her under her chin as Papa starts to cry, hunchback hunched over the kitchen sink. “Chin up, sweetheart. You just gotta get yourself a job.”

_But where_? thinks Krista, staring numb-eyed and lip-biting into her lap. She tugs up her socks again.

+++

Twenty minutes till work starts, but Ymir’s still hardballing fast. Three cigarettes in and she’s feeling light-headed enough to win. Jean says they could raise the stakes. He says he knows a guy with a lump of gold buried in his backyard, says this guy up and gave him a job, no resumé or nothing, because he liked the way Jean wears his hair (half-shaved, not yet stylish). “You’re pretty cool, Ymir,” says Jean, leaning lazily against Marco’s shoulder. “But you know I don’t do anything for free.”

“Yeah, yeah. You just like being a dick, I know.”

“Look, this whole job thing, it’s not entirely legal, you know what I’m saying? So if you want this information, I gotta know you’re willing to fight for it.”

_He just likes being a dick_ , mouths Marco to Ymir. Jean elbows him in the side, and Marco giggles. 

They play again. Marbles smack-smack-crash off each other. Whoever gets the most through Marco’s finger goal wins. They’re sweating hard, breathing heavy and cigarette husky in the July heat. Ymir’s tanktop sticks to her back. Ten minutes till work starts, and she’s already got that aching fluorescent hum buzzing through her head, the blurry faces of Toms, Johns, and Bettys and that nameless doe-eyed girl, with those baggy, sagging knee socks. 

She’ll soon be counting cash into a half-broken register, and making small talk with the snack-sneaking girl at the register next to hers, who’ll remind her that, yes, her mother is ill, and that Ymir really shouldn’t be smoking because who will take care of her when you’re gone, Ymir? 

_Who’s gonna save her pretty, freckled neck?_

Ymir asks for another cigarette. Marco hands her one.

“You’re gonna get sick if you smoke that much,” says Jean as Marco counts marbles.

“Fuck off, Jean,” coughs Ymir.

“Ymir’s got more marbles,” says Marco. Melodrama Jean throws his hands in the air, scowls like he’s lost the leading part.

“Better make it quick,” says Ymir, smirking. Eight minutes till the grocery store rumble. “I have bills to pay.”

“They call him Erwin Smith,” begins Jean, and Ymir leans in, taking forget-me-not notes in the roadside dust. Jean clears his throat, tries not to sound proud. “And he runs the only legitimate speakeasy in eastern Wisconsin.”


	2. Baby Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: suicide mention
> 
>  
> 
> _if you had the money, well we both might be broke_

How do you do, says Ymir to Mrs. Cracked Frames Basketball Game Scores Totaled Across Her Phone Screen. She then greets Ms. Emery, who once told Ymir’s first grade class that the world spins in retrograde. Ymir sways behind the register. The grocery’s fluorescent hum buzzes overhead. Akon plays over the loudspeakers. Ymir bets her manager thinks he’s really hip. 

But she won’t be working here much longer, nah. She’s got gold-rush prospects on the bright horizon, a great California boom looming behind the beating sun. 

What had his name been?

Erwin Smith. She swipes another card, bags vodka and saltines for the silent widow. She avoids Ymir’s eyes as she nods thanks. Ymir doesn’t smile back. 

Erwin Smith. Lives on the outside of town and has been trying to grow a mustache for the past decade. “He drives an unregistered car,” Jean said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “because he’s an unregistered man, you get me?”

“Nah,” said Ymir. “Well, sort of.”

“He wants to be a legitimate businessman, but he’s not about to fork over half his income to taxes. At least that’s what he tells me.” Jean shrugged. “He’s got kind of a Boston Tea Party slash Al Capone complex, but he pays real good, so.”

“You said he runs a speakeasy?” asked Ymir. She scribbled BTP, followed by a half dozen question marks in the dust. “What the fuck? This is 2008, not, like, whenever the Great Gatsby came out.”

“It’s okay,” snickered Marco. “I didn’t pass tenth grade English either.”

“Shut up,” snapped Ymir.

“It’s all about the alcohol tax,” said Jean. He squinted at the sun, yawned, then lazily propped his head on his fist. “It’s just a really, _really_ roundabout workaround. But listen, the work’s not hard. You just pick up shipments from Milwaukee, then drive like hell back to the bar and load them in the back. It’s an hour drive each way, but he pays for the gas.” Jean paused, watched her chew her lip, mulling it over. “He’s also looking for waitresses, but I don’t really think that’s your thing.”

“I can drive fast,” said Ymir. “I can drive real fast.”

“ _Hey_ ,” says Snack Bitch from the register beside her. She’s unwrapping a candy bar that’s been long-stashed beneath a stack of training manuals. She takes a big bite. The lights hum. “You smell like shit.”

Ymir shivers. The heat presses its sun-bleached face against the grocery’s windows, but inside these buzzing aisles, the artificial cold weaves its frost-tipped fingers through her hair. She leans against the register, cigarette smoke still spinning her head. But she remembers the address, yeah, and the name. Erwin Smith. 803 Appleby Road. Barrel-chested, backwards dreaming Erwin Smith. The house is still covered in Christmas lights. You can’t miss it.

“You know,” says Snack Bitch, chewing hard on weeks old chocolate, “my mama died when I was really young. She got real sick, my dad said. Leukemia, I think it was? I couldn’t have helped her then—hell, I didn’t even know my ABCs when she passed—but if I were grown then, I would’ve quit my job and devoted my whole life to taking care of her. I know I would’ve.”

Snack Bitch’s voice fades into the fluorescent hum, the beeping of malfunctioning scanners, the buzzing of the air conditioner. Ymir can’t wait to waltz through Erwin Smith’s overgrown lawn. She’ll burst through his door without a résumé. “I’m an asshole and a Scorpio and I failed tenth grade English,” she’ll say, “but I’d drive that car all the way to Santa Fé, and if you pay a little extra I won’t even ask any questions, I swear.”

There’s Old Meth Eyes again, stalking past the front displays with his coupon shoebox cradled under his arm. With his free hand, he scratches his chin. It draws blood. His red-rimmed eyes widen frightened, but he swears like he’s angry. 

“You should really be home taking care of your Ma. I saw her getting the mail last week. She was hobbling real slow, and her eyes seemed like they’d sunk real deep in her head. You should be home with her, but nah, you’re just off smoking with that freckled guy and that asshole with the shitty fake ID. You smell like y’all smoked a pack, at least. You know, Ymir, smoking hard like that’s just a long, drawn out suicide, spread over your whole, sad life. Who’s going to take care of her when you’re gone, Ymir?”

The grocery doors slide open. The owner had been so proud when he’d first installed those automatic doors. They’d run so smoothly; their electric opening and closing ushered in fanfare for a big city boom. They gave the store a real Minneapolis vibe, customers said. Now they creak shut, un-oiled since 2005. Ymir cranes her neck, then, at the sight of their newest customer, feels a flush creep up her neck.

Bruised Knees, face pink from the looming heat, stands on her tiptoes, squinting at the numbers above each register. Ymir snaps her eyes back to Snack Bitch. She straightens her collar and runs a hand through her greasy hair. _Shit, she’s coming my way_.

“Your mom’ll die all sad and alone, and on her death bed she’ll be calling your name. She’ll cry, ‘Oh, Ymir! Oh, Ymir!’ It’ll be a damn shame when she—“

“Yo, Sasha, can you shut the fuck up for a second?” Ymir snaps. She shoves her jitterbug hands in her pockets. “Someone’s coming over.”

“Oh sure,” says Snack Bitch, tossing her candy wrapper in the trash. “Whatever.”

Bruised Knees lingers at the entrance to Ymir’s check out, toys with pocketed loose change while comparing the prices of bubblegum. Her eyelids droop heavy. Her thick lashes fall closed, but they flutter open after a long moment, as though she had nearly fallen into a sad, summer-beaten dream. She glances at Ymir. Ymir swallows. Her cheeks burn. Shit. Bruised Knees’s eyes fall back to her shoes. She kneels on the dirty tile, tugs up her sagging socks. Her ghost-blond hair falls over her face. Soft voiced but hard faced, she asks, “Are you hiring?”

Ymir opens her mouth to respond, but the crackle of the loudspeaker cuts her off. “Could Ymir please come to the manager’s office?” 

“I’ll get you an application,” says Snack Bitch to Bruised Knees.

+++

The one room parent’s bedroom schoolhouse, where Krista learned arithmetic and God and apologies, with its curtains perpetually drawn shut and its desk fan a constant whir behind Mama’s thin-lipped sermon. Mama’s shadow paces behind the drapes; heavyset, bowed head shadow with unseen eyes target-locked on Krista’s back. “You’ll find a job fast,” she’d said as Krista double knotted her shoes. “You’re a pretty one. They always do.”

Krista doesn’t go into town often. They hadn’t meant to become so isolated, a free-floating city state beside the silent highway, but Mama found solace in books and Krista didn’t find it in town, no, she sure as hell didn’t find it in town. Her heels kick up dust on the dirt path. She ducks under that overhanging tree, the one whose leaves are spattered with caterpillar bullet holes. Too-tall grass brushes her knees. She kneels, pulls up her falling socks. A mosquito touches base on her shoulder, but she slaps it dead. Papa always says she should walk along the highway, says this isn’t the 20’s, nobody’s gonna steal your milk and eggs, baby girl. 

_Who’re you calling baby girl_?

She kicks a pebble, brushes sweat-soaked blonde hair from her forehead. The sun beats hard on her cheeks. She forgot to paint her nails today. 

Where’s she going to find a job? She’s too big-eyed for bartending, too short-stacked for window cleaning. There’s a diner next door to the bar, but who’s her in? Homeschooled and bored, she had always stared glassy-eyed at the menu, tried to greet the waitress but only caught the exit swoosh of her skirt. She’d eat politely, tip average—she’s impressionless, she knows, an antique photograph easing between the air conditioner and the hanging humidity. She is kind, but forgettable.

Maybe she could throw herself in front of the mayor’s car. He always drives to Milwaukee on the weekends, drives too fast with his phone scrolling on the dashboard. The insurance would probably pay well. She bets he’d toss in extra for mama and papa. “Sorry for killing your daughter,” he’d say with hands clasped over his thick chest. “Have a new Toyota, a ticket to Spain. Enjoy yourselves like she never could. I’m sure she’ll rest easier knowing you are happy.”

Sure, yeah. Baby Jane baby blue-eyed rotting nasty up in Heaven. Mama would crawl for her in the convents of Spain, scrub their centuries dusted floors until her knees burst purple and blue. Papa would buy himself a Vespa. He’d drive fast down country roads until his suit was covered in gravel dirt and his cheeks were rubbed raw by the wind. 

She digs a rock out of her shoe. 

Maybe she’ll try cashiering instead.

Krista gets to town at three, at least that’s what the church clock says. It hasn’t been wound in a while, but she trusts it like it’s God. Her tank top, buttoned tight to the throat, sticks to her back. She tugs at her collar and straightens her skirt. The grocery across the street will have to do. Through the window, she spots the tall girl with the following eyes and freckles that dapple her nose like a rain-splattered window. She’s got sturdy hands and a barbed wire tongue. Krista swallows. _Gotta get that job_ , she reminds herself, _gotta be the baby breadwinner_.

The grocery store’s cold, colder than it has any right to be. A man with sunken eyes and twitching fingers wanders aimlessly past the aisles, clutching a worn shoebox stuffed with coupons to his side. Shivering Krista lingers by the produce. She shuffles her feet. She glances up to catch the tall girl’s gaze; Krista roots her eyes back to her feet. _You’re here to get a job, silly_. _Get on that work grind before Mama grinds your bones to dust_. 

Slow stepping and awkward, she approaches the tall girl, who hisses the neighboring cashier silent. The tall girl runs a hand through her hair. She’s prettier up close, all frowning and sunburnt and jutting collarbones. A flush starts to spread over Krista’s cheeks. She drops to the floor, hides her face under her hair, and feigns tugging up her socks. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Are you hiring?” she asks.

+++

“You smell like shit,” says Boss, crossing her legs and tucking her hair (full gray at 33, embarrassing but somewhat frightening) behind her ears. Ymir leans against the wall. Her mouth is drawn a thin, sour line. Her leg jiggles. “Lighten up,” continues Boss. “It’s not like anyone’s died or anything.”

Ymir yawns. She stares up at the ceiling. Bruised Knees had spoken so softly, voice lilting, a windswept whisper nearly lost in the hum of the lights and the roar of the air conditioner. Up close, her eyes had loomed large and half-hearted, as though she had once seen a ghost and now gazed through the world as if it were transparent. Her hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. She’d clenched her nervous fists at her side, bit her lip like she was preparing to be forgotten. Nameless and displaced, corralled into an island of herself yet spilling her lost eyes across the filthy tile. 

“Oi, Ymir, you listening?” Boss waves her hand in Ymir’s face. She starts. “Did you get all that?”

“Get what?” asks Ymir.

“You’re fired.”

Ymir’s leg freezes. 

“You’re kidding me.” Said sharply, a rushed admission of defeat. _Shit_.

“Look,” Boss leans back in her chair, straightens her glasses, “you look like you haven’t showered for days and you smell like a house fire. You were ten minutes late to work today, and yesterday, and the day before that. Yeah, your mom’s sick, but her illness can’t save you from your own goddamn laziness. Listen, look, I’m sorry, but we can’t tolerate this behavior. Not from you, not from anyone.”

A high-pitched, nervous laugh sputters from Ymir. Her hands shake and there’s her mother at home on the couch on that pill or that one or whichever red blue green one they can’t afford them they can’t afford any of them. 

They’re all the same that way. 

She swallows. “I need this job,” she says.

“Everybody needs this job,” replies Boss. “What makes you think you’re any different?”

+++

Krista sits legs crossed on the curb, application laid over her lap. She chews her pen tip. The sun beats hard on her back. Name, Krista Lenz. Age, 19 years. Phone number, 414-877-3278. Social Security. Social security? _Who the Hell remembers their social security_?

She groans. Mama’s probably got her card locked in a safe in the cellar, and as they cross into that cold underground she’ll tell Krista again about the man who had lived in the house before them. “He caught a boy climbing his fence and locked him down here. He left the kid down here for two days before the police came a-knocking. Poor kid had tried to eat the dirt, poor thing, poor, poor thing.” She will cross herself then. “If Mr. Grisha Jaegar was still alive, I’d reckon he’d be the one that shot the Wagner boy. Damn shame that was. A goddamned shame.”

 _Can I just make it up_? thinks Krista as the grocery’s door screeches open. She jumps, nearly bites the pen tip in half. 

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit,” growls a raspy voice behind her. “I’m so fucked. So, so fucked.”

Krista swivels her head. The tall girl with dust freckles stands shaking in front of the grocery store door, face hidden behind her hands, black hair falling out of her ponytail and spilling over her knuckles. She catches Krista’s eye in the gap between her fingers. “What are you looking at?” she scowls. 

“Are you okay?” asks Krista. She toys with the pen tip in her hands. “Um, sorry. That was a stupid question.”

“Nah, it’s alright.” She plops on the curb beside Krista, long legs sprawling out over the pavement. She sighs, rubs her temples with long, yellow-tipped fingers. “I just got fired.”

“Oh,” says Krista. _How do you comfort a stranger_? “I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t be so pissed about it, but I’m just so--I mean, one, I don’t have to listen to Snack Bitch bitch at me all day about her mom and my mom and how shitty a person I am. And two, I have another job lined up that pays a lot better, I’ve heard. Just gotta drive there tomorrow. The dude’s supposed to be nuts, but it’s a job.” She takes a deep breath. “The boss pretty much called me a lazy piece of shit—which is true, I’m grade C garbage. I should’ve decked her or something.” She traces a circle in the dirt. “I don’t know. I sure as Hell can’t tell Mom about this. Fuck.”

The tall girl dangles her hands between her knees. Her eyelids flutter tired, exhausted from the easy trust found only in strangers’ eyes. She sighs. Awkwardly, Krista pats her knee. “I’m sorry about your job,” she says. “You could, um, try calling this guy right now? That way you’ll have a new job before your mom even knows you lost your old one.”

She groans. “Jean didn’t give me his number. All I’ve got is his address.”

“That’s inconvenient.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You could, um, drive there, I guess.”

“Yeah,” the girl says, “yeah I could.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Krista stares at the application in her lap, feels the sun scorch her shoulders and bleach her hair. Beside her, the girl fumbles in her pocket for a pack of cigarettes (Krista can still smell them, smoke memories caught in the thin fibers of her shirt), but she comes up empty-handed, so she scowls. Birds squawk overhead. 

“I’m Krista, by the way.” 

“Ymir.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah, same.”

More silence. Across the street, a woodpecker attempts to drill through a fencepost. 

“I’m, uh, sorry about that outburst,” says Ymir, scratching the back of her head, grimacing. “How, uh, how’s the application going?”

“I forgot my social security number.”

“Well, shit,” chuckles Ymir. Krista giggles. “You could just make one up, I guess.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Krista smiles at her. A blush or a sunburn creeps up Ymir’s neck. Krista tries to ignore her rising heartbeat. “I don’t think I have three references, either,” she says, turning back to her paper, letting her hair fall over her face. “This isn’t as easy as mama said it would be.”

“Nothing ever is,” says Ymir. She rubs her wrist, rolls her lips together before continuing. “If you want, I could try to get you a job with the guy I’m seeing tomorrow? I could pick you up on the way over. You don’t need a résumé or anything, at least that’s what Jean says.”

“What’s the job?” asks Krista. 

“It’s, uh, pretty weird.”

“Okay?”

Ymir clears her throat. “Have you ever wanted to work in a speakeasy?”

+++

Ymir gets home at four o’ clock. She hangs her bag on the peg above the trashcan. The house smells stale. It always smells stale.

The TV blares a reality show, something about marriage, or architecture, or pawning. Ma lays sprawled out over the couch, insect-thin limbs arranged carefully over the cushions. Though it’s nearly ninety-five outside, she buries her chin in her grandmother’s quilt. Her eyelids, once adorned with Ymir’s thick lashes, now flutter bare as she tries to stay awake. She coughs. Blood on her bony fingers.

Ymir grabs a tissue from the kitchen, gently blots the blood from her mother’s hands. The man on the TV hands a rose to brunette. He says he doesn’t mind her broken nose.

“How was work today?” asks Ma, her warbling voice like a soft upward scratch on a heart monitor.

Ymir tries not to bow her head. Her hands shake as she tosses the tissue in the trash. 

“It was fine, Ma.”


End file.
